Even now, after having a healthy baby and not wanting another one right now, I have trouble feeling genuinely happy for someone else when I find out that they are pregnant.  What the heck is wrong with me?

Friday evening as my husband and I were prepping dinner, he told me that he had some news.  Being the person that I am, I just knew it had to do with someone being pregnant.  So I guessed to him that someone was pregnant and he nodded.  Then I started naming possible pregnant people.  I think it was my 3rd guess that was correct.  I'm pretty good at that game.

"Isn't that exciting news?" he said.

I should mention that they already have an almost 3 year old.

"Oh yeah.  Exciting" I said, trying to actually sound remotely excited.  "When is she due?"

"Oh it is still really early and definitely not public because she is only 9 weeks so don't mention it to anyone" he said.

"I guess she's never had any trouble" I said sarcastically and walked out of the kitchen, leaving my husband alone with his "exciting" news.

My reaction to the news kind of surprised myself.  I haven't heard about anyone getting pregnant lately so I haven't had to react.  Most of my friends are done having kids or are getting ready to give birth at any time.  There are a few people who are waiting in the wings (namely my Sister and SIL), but I am not even sure that either of them are actively trying at this point.  

Why is it that I can't be happy for someone when I find out that they are pregnant?  I am immediately filled with jealousy, anger, and resentment.  Shouldn't I be over these feelings at this point?  I have my baby.  he is healthy.  I love him.  I am finally starting to feel more relaxed and happy with things in my life so why is this one area still sore?

I am wondering if I am forever going to feel this way.  Will I never feel happy when someone announces that they are pregnant unless I know the full back story?  If this was their first try or an oops, will I forever be jealous of them even though it is not their fault?  I obviously wouldn't wish the things that happened to me to happen to anyone else so I am not sure why I feel this way.  It is as if my experience with miscarriage took away the joy and happiness surrounding the miracle of pregnancy/childbirth.

Example:  A friend of a friend had a miscarriage right around the beginning of her 2nd trimester.  She then had a lot of trouble getting pregnant again.  When she finally fell pregnant last year I was genuinely happy for her.  She went through so much to have her baby so I had no feelings of resentment towards her and I got teary when I heard that she gave birth to a healthy child.

Has anyone else who has experienced loss/infertility, but have gone on to have a healthy child (or children), felt or currently feel like I do?  If you have felt like this and no longer do, what helped you?  I really want to put all of the past in the past and move forward.  I want to congratulate someone when I hear that they are pregnant...and actually mean it.

Yesterday I was having one of those days where I was really feeling like throwing in the towel on the whole blog thing.  Why do I continue writing?  It takes up precious time and I oftentimes struggle with what to actually wrote.  I am not sure that many people are still reading other than the person who Googles and randomly stumbles upon one of my posts related to: "does CrossFit cause divorce?", "diastasis recti", or "do long cycles cause miscarriage?".  If I pulled my blog out of the blogisphere today, would anyone know or even care?

Since I started blogging, back in the spring of 2012, my content and tone have changed quite a bit.  I have gone from a very bitter and jaded "baby-less" person that blogged about miscarriage, temping, and pee-sticks to a mommy that blogs about her post-baby body self-esteem, running, and CrossFit issues.  The pre-baby and post-baby blogs are almost completely different audience types and, with the exception of people who have been following me for a while and have gone through similar circumstances, I am not sure how many new and regular readers I have.  What is the point of continuing?  For my own personal health and well-being?  If that was the case, couldn't I just write everything down in a private journal?  I seriously ask myself this all of the time.

Yesterday, I remembered to check my blog email box for the first time in several months.  Besides mounds of spam from people trying to get me to give them a shout out or let them "guest post", I had a few emails from a few different women who were writing to seek my advice regarding situations that they were in right now that I had once been in.  I was reminded of why I continue to keep my blog and the associated email box going.  For as many people that no longer follow me and read my posts, there continue to be a few people who come across my blog that find it helpful and comforting.  They have found themselves in an unfortunate position and the cosmic powers of Google have brought them to my tiny little space where they have been able to read about what I have gone through, relate either somewhat or completely, and apply things that I learned or tried to help them with their situations.  I seriously love that I am able to help even just one person a year because that is one less person who feels like they are dealing with a similar issue, alone.

One thing that a lot of these women that write to me have in common (and definitely how I once felt) is that they are alone in their situations and in their feelings about their situation.  They feel like the time is going so slowly and that they will never "be on the other side".  I am sure that there will always be extenuating circumstances that will make it medically impossible (for one reason or another) for someone who has miscarried many times, to have a child.  That said, out of all of the women who have ever taken the time to write to me personally, I cannot think of one that has followed up with me, that has not be able to eventually have a baby...somehow.  This makes me so happy.

I know that I currently don't have anyone's "permission" to anonymously post their story (and would NEVER do so unless I was given permission), but I would really love to share some stories of other ladies, who have been in similar shoes to my own, on my blog.  Maybe once a month or every other month or something like that.  I think that reading stories of others that have "been through it" helps those that are "still going through it" actually get through it.  Having some hope is half the battle and if I can provide hope to others by sharing positive stories, I am doing a world of good.

Old habits die hard...case and point...using Baby Connect to document my son's sleep, diapers, nursing, and my pumping nearly 16 months after his birth.  This past weekend, I quit using it cold turkey because it has just gotten too hard to guarantee that my husband and MIL are going to using it with any regularity.  I was tired of logging in and seeing that B was still "asleep" 12 hours and 52 minutes later since no one bother to "mark him as awake".

It was weird to be done with it, to put it simply.  I think I have been holding on to it in hopes that I could slow down the crazy fast progression of time and keep my baby little.  I know it sounds really silly, but since I have been tracking his nursing/sleeping/diapering habits since shortly after his birth, it is sad to me to not be doing it anymore.

To any prospective new moms out there, Baby Connect is a fabulous tool to track your baby's eating, drinking, sleeping, diapers, medical information, etc.  It is especially good for those analyst moms out there, like me, that like to see trends, irregularities, and inconsistencies in the form of charts and graphs.  Seeing sleep regression or a nursing strike on paper?  Helps you understand why you fell asleep on your desk yesterday or why you have yet another, clogged duct today.

 More than just tracking the basics, as mentioned above, I have basically used Baby Connect in lieu of a "baby book".  I have several baby books on the shelf that have collected a ton of dust because I have (guiltily enough) never so much as opened them.  I know that the first time that B smiled (for real) was on May 23, 2013 @ the ripe old age of 1 month and 5 days.  He got his first tooth on August 15, 2013 at 3 months and 27 days.  He said "Dada" on November 6, 2013 at the age of 6 months and 18 days.  I'll stop boring you with any more details about B's firsts.  :)

Another great feature of Baby Connect was the "Medical" section where you could document doctor's visits, illnesses, temperatures, and medicine dosage/distribution.  It was seriously invaluable to know what time I last gave B infant's Tylenol and what dosage that I gave him.  It was also great to take with me to the doctor's office so that when they asked me what his temperature was, I could easily whip out my phone and show them.  This is one aspect of Baby Connect that I am going to continue using.  I like seeing the percentiles and growth on a chart.  Yes, this is the analyst particles in my blood.

Wow, reading this back, it totally sounds like I am a Baby Connect sales rep.  Hahaha.  I can honestly tell you that I am not, although if someone high up at Baby Connect is reading this, I would love to work for you, so please email me!  :)

So, as I wipe away a few tears and try to embrace the fact that my baby is now a toddler, I will leave you with some of the charts that Baby Connect has compiled for me from the past few months.  This mommy thing is so hard; and I don't mean that because of the lack of sleep, lack of personal time/space, etc.  It is hard because, as much as you want your child to grow and thrive, it is so tough to let go of your baby.  Looking back at pictures of his baby self and remembering how "tiny" he was and how great he smelled.  Sigh.  I guess this is why people have more than one child.  ;)

I leave you with some summary graphs and charts from Baby Connect...enjoy!

You read about them all the time...mom accidentally leaves baby in the car, dad loses track of toddler in the grocery store, baby eats something they shouldn't which involves either a trip to the ER or a call to poison control, etc.  I'm sure some parents are perfect (...riiiiiiight) and have never had a really stupid and potentially dangerous oops moment with their precious cargo that they really wish they could do over.  I had one of those moments on Sunday.  Don't worry, it doesn't have anything to do with hot cars or accidentally ingested toxic substances.

I was in the bathroom getting ready to go to the grocery store with B.  The bathroom is one of those places that I don't really like him to be, but if I am in there, I would rather have him be in my sight than out of my site and doing potentially dangerous things.  Anyways, he was in the bathroom, doing one of his favorite things...watching ABC Mouse alphabet songs.  Seriously, this kid knows half of those songs by heart.  If you haven't downloaded the app to your iPhone or other "i" device, you should.  It may help get you out of a jam and keep your baby occupied while you stay sane on one many occasions.  Basically, there is an extremely catchy 2ish minute song for each letter of the alphabet.  At the end of listening to a song, you get 1-3 tickets towards "purchasing" another song.  You start with A, B, and C, and then go from there.  We have all of the letters on the iPad and an extra 300 or so tickets...so yeah...he loves those songs.

Back to the bad parenting moment.  Little B was sitting on the bathroom rug, listening to the N song (or "nee, nee," as he likes to call it).  I was trying to put my rats nest of hair into a my usual boring bun.  Well, the song ended, he collected his tickets, and then he wanted me to pick him another song, since he hasn't quite mastered the fact that you can only touch one part of the iPad screen at a time in order to select something.  He stood up, picked up the iPad and started carrying it over to me, when he lost his grip and dropped the heavy generation 2 iPad on his left big toe and my right pinky toe.

OUCH!  We both whelped in pain, but I thought he got me much worse than he got himself.  He started crying pretty hard, though.  I scooped him up, kissed him, and did what I usually do, try to downplay the injury and tell him that he is ok.  He seemed pretty upset so we left the bathroom and I tried to find a distraction in a different room.  I got one of his toys and started playing with him, but he was having none of my distraction.  He was really upset so we went back into the bathroom and I set him on the bench to take a look.  Good thing I did.

There was blood...EVERYWHERE.  It was all over my white (of course I was wearing white) shorts, navy white/blue striped tank top, and it was running down my leg.  It was on the rug, on the floor, and even on the wall.  OMG I was horrified.  First at the fact of how much blood there was and secondly that it had taken me so long to notice that he was bleeding so badly.  I was shaking, but trying to not make it seem like I was upset so that he wouldn't get more upset.

I got a wet washcloth and wiped his poor little big toe, which was extremely difficult because it hurt him, I'm sure.  I squeezed on some antibiotic cream and put a bandage on him.  Poor thing.  Of course we had plans to go to the water park later that day, but wouldn't be able to now with this injury.  Stupid Mommy!!!

The rest of that day, he seemed ok.  He was walking running around with no issue and didn't seem to be in any pain.  Then came the night, which was a different story.  He was up.  All.  Night.  Literally.  The kid was so upset and did not sleep from 12-4 AM.  We were thinking that he was getting sick, but it turns out that it was his toe that was bothering him because he kept trying to pull off his bandage.  We gave him some infant acetaminophen and he finally fell asleep for a few hours.  Everyone in our house spent their Monday in a sleepy, groggy, foggy, haze.

The next day...his toenail fell off.  UGH.  I knew that it was bothering him so I kept slathering on the antibiotic cream and tried to keep a sock on him even though it was almost 90 degrees out.  I called the doctor that morning to see if they thought that we should bring him in.  She explained that we were doing everything right and to monitor it for excessive redness, warmth, or puss, which might indicate an infection.

My poor baby.  There is one thing that almost all mommies have in common, which is that they never want their babies to feel pain.  I would much rather have the pain transferred to me.  I have no idea how bad it hurts him because he can't tell me yet so I can only imagine.  I know that this is small potatoes compared to other illnesses/injuries that children get, but it is still pain that my child is experiencing that I wish I could take away.  I can't imagine the pain that a mother or father would feel knowing that their child was battling cancer or some other type of illness.  I see stories like that on the news, which used to bother me before I had B, but now I get very teary.

The moral of this story is that I need to be more careful when B is watching is ABC Mouse videos and that I need to pay attention when he injures himself to make sure that his injury isn't worse than I thought.  I am still working on getting this whole parenting thing down.  I am definitely not perfect.  No one is (even if they think that they are).  We all make mistakes, but the difference between making a mistake that affects you and making a mistake that affects your child can be huge.  We never want our children to pay for our own stupid mistakes.

I am currently knee-deep in NYC marathon training and, let me tell you, the cards have definitely been stacked against me, once again.  My husband and I have managed to keep, what I have viewed as a fair schedule for the last couple of weeks.  Yes, there have been days when I feel like his workouts have been ill-timed or ridiculously long, but other than that, we have both been able to train for our respective sports while still managing the baby, the house, the pets, our jobs, etc.

Here is an example of my workout schedule for this week:

Monday- 6 miles (easy)
Tuesday- Track workout of 400 (90 sec rest), 400 (2:30 rest), 800 (90 sec rest) x 3, with a 1 mile warm-up and 1 mile cool-down
Wednesday- OFF
Thursday- 6 miles with 3 miles at tempo pace (1/2 marathon to marathon pace)
Friday- 45-60 min (easy)
Saturday- 16 miles
Sunday- 30-45 min (easy) and/or cross-train

I usually do my Mon/Thursday workouts right after work at 5 PM and my husband spends time with the baby (feeds him dinner and bathes him) and then I take over so that he can leave around 6:30 PM for his workout for which he usually doesn't return until almost 9 PM or later.  My Mon/Thursday runs take between 45-55 minutes and I always forgo stretching so that I can get back to see B.

Tuesday is the only night that I have to go run at a specific time because I run with a group of people.  I have to leave at 6:10 PM to get there on time, so this is the ONE day that I have requested that he take off.  If I could change the schedule and make everyone meet on Wednesday, I would, but I am not making the schedule.  Before I leave, I usually help feed B and occasionally bathe him, too.

Wednesdays, I usually take off so my husband is free to go to train whenever he wants, but he usually doesn't go until 6:30 PM.

Fridays, I usually run at lunch unless there is a baby doctor appointment or some other appointment that day.  If I can't run at lunch then I run with the baby in the jogger after work or occasionally pull a Mon/Thurs schedule kind of day.  My husband is (usually) free to train whenever he wants.

Saturday mornings are my long runs (up to 22 miles by Sept/Oct).  I have been getting on the road between 5 AM and 5:30 AM so that I can be back in time for my husband to go and workout at at 8 AM.  He usually goes around 8 AM and doesn't come back until 11 AM, at which point we all start the rest of our day, together.

Sundays are our only day to "sleep in".  Usually B has other plans, but occasionally we get to sleep until 7-7:30 AM.  Occasionally we do a family workout and run together with B in the jogger or do some other type of cross-training workout.

So most of you reading this are probably exhausted after reading this because I feel exhausted after typing it.  It may seem fair to you or you may think, sheesh, that guys really does long workouts (the thought I usually have).  Last night we ran into an issue, which I feel like we have run into before.  My husband is not a fan of my Tuesday night workouts because he says that it screws up the whole week for him.  I thought that we had come to an agreement that Tuesdays were MY day.  The one day that I can go and workout with others and not feel like I have to rush back.  Apparently, there was no agreement.

My MIL is still watching the baby on Mon/Tues until the end of the month.  When she decided she wanted to do this, she told us that she was here to watch the baby and that we should never feel bad about doing so while she was there.  Well, I think she came to the realization that he is a lot more work than she thought and come 4:30 PM, she is ready to hand him over to his rightful owners.  My husband has been sneakily getting his mom to watch the baby on Tuesdays so that he can slink out of the house at 5 PM to go workout.  He doesn't get back until around 7 PM, so I am left with the uncomfortable job of leaving the baby with Meme after she has already watched him all day.  I feel guilty and terrible when I leave.  My husband doesn't mind because, when he leaves, I'm there.

After work last night (after thinking we had an agreement about Tuesdays since we had gotten into a fight about it the previous week), my husband, MIL, SIL, and I were all sitting in the living room watching B when my husband asked his mom if she would mind watching B while he went to workout.  She didn't sound like she had even the slightest bit of interest in that idea.  If she had said, "Yes!  I'd love to," then maybe I would not be typing this right now, but she definitely did not sound excited.  I glared at him and told him that I thought we decided that he was taking the day off, but he shrugged off my comment and kept talking about working out.  I asked him politely not to go, but he kept pressing it.  I told him quietly that I didn't feel comfortable having this conversation in front of his family so he decided to be passive-aggressive and say, "Fine.  I won't go." so as to make me feel as guilty as possible.  He even threw in an, "my workout schedule for the week is ruined."  Of course steam started flowing out of my nose and ears.

To make a long story short, he didn't go, but not because he remembered our conversation from the previous week.  In fact, he said he could not recall said conversation.  I went to my running workout feeling guilty as ever and did not perform well and didn't have a great time because I kept thinking about this situation.

When I got back at around 8:30 PM, the house was dark, the front light was out, and the door was locked.  I got inside and everything was quiet.  I went upstairs to find my husband in bed...sleeping.  B's lunches were not packed, his cups dirty, the dirty pump parts in the sink, the cats milling around, the dog begging to be let outside.  To me, this was the ultimate F.U.  I have to get up at 4:30 AM so that I can get to work early enough to be able to pick B up from daycare, plus 90 percent of the time I am up with him at least once a night.  Yes, I know I choose to do this work-out once a week so I get back late and have a little scrambling to do and have to deal with less sleep.  I get that.  What I don't get is why he wants to (seemingly) make my life more difficult on this particular night.    

So of course B was also up all night last night.  Some type of almost 16 month old sleep regression situation going on.  So on top of being super angry, I had to deal with that.  I guess it is still TBD how we decide to work this situation out since we can't seem to come to a compromise that works for both of us.  Is it me?  Is it him?  Is it both of us?  Should we both give up the notion of being able to train for anything and just go back to working out to prevent us from becoming unhealthy?  I am not sure if our situation is unique, but it would be great to get some advice or feedback on how you all make it work (without divorce!).